Southern Baptist group shifts position on climate

A group of Southern Baptist leaders has launched a new initiative on the environment, saying that their denomination’s past declarations have been “too timid.”

“We believe our current denominational resolutions and engagement with these issues have often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice,” reads the initiative’s statement, which was released March 10. The lack of scientific unanimity should not prevent “prudent action” through changed habits and “responsible policies,” it said.

Though SBC president Frank Page and two former convention presidents are among the initiative’s 45 signatories, officials at the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist entity that addresses environmental matters, have not signed the statement. The signers included Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, Plano, Texas, who was the SBC president from 2002 to 2004.